How I became an ascended master

Just kidding. That’s clickbait. But I do want to share something personal. And it's going to take about two thousand words to do so. So, hold on to your butts!

I wrote an article about "the myth of freedom" which essentially boils down to: It's not enough to focus solely on your external world, to better your external circumstance, that, at some point, you have to develop your inner world if you ever want a chance on truly understanding who your are meant to be.

I hadn't scheduled it like I have in the past and when I went to send it Wednesday morning, the software bugged out. Rather than fuss about, I just said "fuck it, I'll send it tomorrow." Obviously, I didn't. Something wasn't sitting right. I lacked motivation to send it out. Which, for me, typically means something's "off" and needs adjustment.

It's a few days later now and my realization is that no matter how I worded it, it kept feeling preachy. And, it's because it's the first article where I feel... I dunno, "invested" perhaps. There's something about the message that is more personal to me—like I'm not just sharing an idea or theory, but some aspect of myself or at least some deep aspect of my belief system.

Despite this personal attachment, the article itself is markedly impersonal. It has nice quotes from Carl Jung, The "Rascal Sage" and Buddhist monks. Whoop-de-do. It was boring and uncompelling.

So, here's my story instead.

Without any esoteric or psychological knowledge, I flowed through life pretty easily. Maybe, cause I never really tried to do much. But, I always played with computers. I recall pretending I was doing "important" stuff on my dad's Briefcase computer from the 80s when I was a child. TL;DR I taught myself Photoshop, how to hack Minesweeper, then online PC games, and eventually how to make websites.

I never even tried to "apply to colleges" as it seemed others were doing and instead just bummed around. I worked at Sport Chek for like 4 months of what felt like life-threatening levels of boredom and finally said to myself: "Oh shit, I gotta do something." So I learned as much as I could about Photoshop and programming. I was broke af so never bought any textbooks or courses. This was before YouTube, so I mainly learned from forums and random blogs. Also tizag.com. Shout-out tizag.

Fast-forward: Interned at a print and ad design company, didn't like it, scoured Craigslist for work, found someone who needed "Wordpress" customization, applied and then found out what Wordpress was and taught myself all I could before meeting them a week later.

FFWD: I kept freelancing, worked at an ad agency, worked at some other agencies, then startups, then agency, then a mushroom powder company.

Here's where we get to the crux. The mushroom powder company was a dream job. The people were amazing, the work was varied and challenging, leading to lots of new knowledge and growth, the pay and benefits were fantastic—really, a dream job. Yet, eventually, something in me changed. I wasn't getting the energy back that I put in. Which, you guessed it, lead to burnout. It also felt like a pinnacle moment where I was no longer flowing. I felt stuck.

Now, before the "switch" happened in me and I starting burning out, something else was going on in the world. You may recall this little something. Ah yes, the global pandemic…

I don't care to dwell or talk about this, so let's just say: Because of how people reacted and what they were saying and how they were treating each other, I basically lost faith in my logic and reason based worldview. And that was my worldview. I didn’t mediate or do yoga or any fancy breathing. I really thought happiness came from molding and influencing the external world. I would later learn this is a classic precursor to the "Hero's Journey" or the process of individuation. At the time, it felt like the carpet was pulled out from under my feet. Discombobulating.

Anyway, I kept working at my "dream" job which was indeed amazing during this time. That discombobulation eventually lead down the path of metaphysics, esoteric knowledge and spirituality.

I guess once you know something, you can't un-know it. There were core truths in what I was learning that were resonating deeply within me. And that truth kept growing within my being. At some point, I suppose it grew big enough that, it affected my actual being. Perhaps, this could be described as some sort of spiritual awakening or some, rather minute yet significant enough for me, level of ascension. Perhaps. All I can really say is that my new perspective of the world, reality, and my place in it, had an affect on my physical body. Maybe this affect was always there, and only then I became aware of it. It doesn't matter.

What matters, is that my body was now physically communicating with me in ways that I had never been apart of before. More than that, it seemed with this new found knowledge and perspective I had tapped into a different destiny. Which is to say, my body was no longer regaining energy I was spending at my "dream" job.

Look, this last part probably sounds weird. My body was communicating with me? But how else could I look at the situation? That something externally changed? That some change at my job was responsible? That everyone else at my work needed to change, then I’d start recouping energy again? Oh yeah, everything would be great if everyone else changed 🙄. Well that was my first reaction.

I’ve always had a certain drive in me. Even as I kid I would get these feelings like I was meant to do something significant. Thankfully, this never really affected my persona or outward expression too much. But it was a crutch. Because the situation I’m describing at the mushroom powder company happened at every one of my jobs.

Earlier on, I would default to blaming the job or circumstance or people around me. That it was causing the stagnation in me and that I needed to change my situation. Which was always wrong, yet perfect for the time. In other words, my “path” is as exactly as it needed to be. If I had this realization earlier on, the effect would not have been the same.

I had reached an impasse at enough jobs that I recognized the pattern. I’m the problem. I’m not going to find more meaning in another job, or something more “significant”.

Because I had been diving into ancient wisdom traditions and spirituality I had a mental framework to process this experience of “I’m the gosh darn problem!” In a way, spirituality is very selfish—every experience is meant for me. Everything out there, in the external world, is happening for me—not to me. The external world isn’t even impartial, inconsequential happenings. Everything out there is something to work with to develop my inner self.

And that’s what my body was now telling me. “I’m no longer going to recoup the energy you’re spending on this job. Good luck, ya jackass.”

Again, thanks to knowledge I was gaining I now knew—within my being—that I would not find meaning out there. That, to answer this calling for significance, I would have to find or maybe create it within. I would have to develop my inner world, my psyche, and eventually my spirituality.

Following this new guidance doesn’t give me much insight into where I’m going though. Actually quite the opposite. It requires complete trust in the unknown. There is no definite plan or route. Prior to the rug being pulled out, my platform was rather comfy and roomy. But it was shallow. Fragile. Now, my platform is uncomfortable. Like hard granite. And small. Yet deep and unbreakable. Maybe that analogy sucks, whatever, here's a quote from a Buddhist monk:

"Symbolically, we leave our homeland, our property and our friends. We give up the familiar ground that supports our ego, admit the helplessness of ego to control its world and secure itself. We give up our clingings to superiority and self-preservation. But taking refuge does not mean becoming dependent upon our teacher or the community or the scriptures. It means giving up searching for a home, becoming a refugee, a lonely person who must depend upon himself. A teacher or fellow traveler or the scriptures might show us where we are on a map and where we might go from there, but we have to make the journey ourselves." —Chögyam Trungpa

Now we arrive at today. Why did I start TEDNET? I'm by no means an expert on all the ancient wisdom teachings. But TEDNET is not meant to be a guidebook or a course on spirituality or self-development. It’s meant to be an inspiration. There is something happening. I feel a massive sense of… something. Like the air itself is statically charged with potential. And not personally, but for all of humanity. This sense is really my only interest.

That sense or feeling is what lead to talking about “this transition we’re in”. And every spiritual and esoteric community is talking about it. From Astrology, Human Design, Shamanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Alien Conspiracists, Christians, you name it.

For me the specific details don’t matter. I can feel it in my body. This time holds great potential and great peril for all of humanity. It does. Collectively, we all have to develop our individual inner worlds. Or, at least, a lot of us do. Otherwise too many of us will be stuck in the density, the sludge, of what’s happening out there.

And there’s a lot of sludge. Wars, inflation, multiple housing crises, climate change, whatever. It’s all like quicksand at the moment, the more you try to engage with it directly the more stuck you get.

If we engage with “negative” circumstance with negativity of our own, we just make more sludge. We have to approach all of it with positivity. Now I don’t know if "toxic positivity" is a thing or not, but let me be more specific just in case: we have to approach every external situation that each of us is a part of with constructive positivity—How is this happening for me, not to me? Then the sludge isn't sludge at all, but fertile soil with immense potential for collective human growth.

Hopefully, that re-framing can inspire you to look inward rather than out. To develop your inner world. To let go of your reason and logic based mind that conceptualizes everything in relation to the outer, physical world and instead starts conceptualizing based on your own individual psyche and, eventually, spirituality. The only freedom is understanding who you are, and walking the path of self discovery. It is utterly unique, personal, and specific to your own subjective experience. In this way, it is utterly lonely. No one else can walk the path for you. Or, really, even with you.

It’s a wild ride. It takes a leap of faith. Courage. No matter your circumstance it means separating yourself from your groups, your community and even your close family and friends. Because your inner world is yours alone. Yet, I truly believe this is the only way for humanity to cultivate the future we actually want. Because once we start looking inward and getting past all the cruft and conditioning, there is something beautiful waiting to be born—in each and every one of us.

I hope this is inspiring. Even to just one person. But I really want to invite everyone. It’s no picnic in the park. Well maybe it is, you just have to traverse a slimy snake riddled cave to get there. But it’s worth it! It’s like a constant chain of epiphanies, each one superseding the last. I’m not even on (permanently) stable ground since the rug was pulled from under me and I want to invite you all! That’s saying something, isn't it?